Bread particles, in the form of crumbs and croutons, are used in a variety of food products, for example, fish coatings, chicken coatings, onion rings, meat patties, stuffing mixes, and as garnishes. The bread particles are generally produced by baking bread according to conventional yeast leavening procedures, allowing the bread to stale and then comminuting the stale loaf to the desired particle size. The time required for conventional staling is normally 1 to 3 days, depending on moisture content of the product, necessitating large storage space for loaves while staling occurs, and then rehandling of the same, with interrupted unit process thus being involved.
In an attempt to abbreviate this 3-day staling process it was suggested that gaseous materials such as carbon dioxide could be utilized in the leavening process instead of yeast. Such a process, describing the utilization of continuous mixers in combination with added gaseous materials, was described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,041,176 to Baker. That process reduced substantially the overall baking time for a bread product as compared to conventional procedures by premixing flour and water to form a slurry which is transferred to a continuous mixer to which gas is introduced to form a continuous dough. The gas proports to raise the dough thereby avoiding the use of yeast.
While this process is useful in reducing the overall baking time as compared to conventional procedures, the process of premixing components into a slurry is time consuming and forecloses the use of yeast or other ferments for their flavor and texture enhancing properties.